Was this before or after the age of video players?
In many ways, to those of us who grew up in the pre-VCR days, the record player was to us what the VCR or DVD player was to later generations. We couldn’t watch “some dumb story,” but we could listen to one. Then videotape players came along and took over some of the entertainment burden, leaving record players mostly for playing music—in much the same way that TV came along and replaced much of the non-musical entertainment function of radio.
I didn’t mean to imply that listening to stories was dumb, I just meant that I preferred to sing and dance to music as a kid than listen to stories.
I straddled the age of VCRs. Didn’t have one when I was actively listening to records as a tot, but did have one once I was old enough to watch Clue. (One of the first movies I remember renting!)
The stories we listened to, if we did at all, were just 45s. Never got in to the LP stories.
You could put on the LP with a story at bedtime and fall asleep listening to it. Or if you didn’t fall asleep, you were entertained for the amount of time it played.
I definitely had a couple, and yeah, they had paper pages inside recounting the story. I believe I had Bambi, and The Rescuers (high-fives Sicks Ate).
I probably only saw each movie once or twice, but here goes a sample of my memory for the songs, 30+ years later:
Be brave, little one
Make a wish for each sad little tear
Hold your head up
Though no one is near
Someone’s waiting for you . . .
(just Googled it and yes - nailed it!)
Holy crap! I played the shit out of this one when I was a kid!
That dude’s voice was like crack to me.
As far as the read along thing goes, I vaguely remember something about every time you heard a bell ring you were supposed to turn the page.
The Disney records I had were all 45s. I don’t remember any read-along books; maybe my older brothers wore them out. Here are the ones I remember.
2-disk sets: 20000 Leagues under the Sea; Toot, Whistle, Plunk, Boom; Alice in Wonderland; Peter Pan.
We also had some singles. At least one had edited cartoon soundtracks: Three Little Pigs/Orphan’s Benefit.
The one I played the shit out of was A Child’s Introduction To Outer Space. It drove my sister, eight years older than I, absolutely nuts; I played it so much. But when she had a quiz in school to name all of the planets (even Pluto), she got them all right. I remember the song as ‘The Wandering Stars’, but apparently its title is The Story Of The Planets. I would dearly love to find a copy of this album for download.
I had one other record that I remember when I was a kid (like ACITOS, not a Disney record). It was a Popeye LP. I don’t remember anything about it, other than it somehow got broken in half. I think I got clumsy. Either that, or the cat did it. I can’t remember.
As for The Jungle Book, I didn’t have it. But my friend did, and we listened to it a lot.
Yeah, I had a whole bunch of those when I was a kid! (They were passed on to me from my cousin, when she outgrew them) I can’t remember all of the ones I had, but my favorites were Cinderella and Lady and the Tramp.
Anyone remember Mickey Mouse Disco?
